Where's the public restrooms?

August 07, 2002

To the Editor:

Gaylord has always been a very progressive city with an Alpine theme, street scapes, flowers and trees, park benches, a small park, a beautiful chamber of commerce building that even houses a Gaylord car, a new covered street to attract people to downtown, and, yet, we are woefully behind.

In our recent spending of our merchants' dollars, a key item was forgotten, neglected or just not put in the budget. Public restrooms. We do not have any, and the visitor to the Alpine Village will find signs posted in many merchants' windows that say, "No public restrooms." True, during the recent Alpenfest porta-johns were provided, but they are certainly not the answer.

The Sugar Bowl does not post such a sign, and all are welcomed. We use over a case of toilet paper and toweling daily just during the festival, but we feel as if we are performing a service. Incidentally, this is a service that should be preformed by the Downtown Development Authority and the city.

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When the new chamber of commerce building was built, public restrooms were proposed; however, at that time they were considered to be too costly and the maintenance cost just could not be justified. Also, the comment was made that they could use the restrooms in the County-City Building, which is closed many hours and some would fear that due to its location they might never return.

Go to Frankenmuth and see the beautiful facilities they have for their visitors, or go to Charlevoix, Petoskey, Harbor Springs and so on, then come home to posted signs and porta-johns, then ask yourself, "Are we really a progressive city or do we just pretend to be one?" We should be ashamed.